I know the liver can store up to 100g of glycogen. It is adviced to take in some carbs in the AM to fill up the liver e.t.c.
Is the liver completely empty in the AM?
Is eating honey and fruit in the AM the best way to fill the liver back with glycogen(since honey is made up of fructose and fruit has some in there as well.)?
I want to add honey into my diet and figured the best time to take it would be in the morning since fructose isn’t the best carb choice post-workout.
[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
I know the liver can store up to 100g of glycogen. It is adviced to take in some carbs in the AM to fill up the liver e.t.c.
Is the liver completely empty in the AM?
Is eating honey and fruit in the AM the best way to fill the liver back with glycogen(since honey is made up of fructose and fruit has some in there as well.)?
I want to add honey into my diet and figured the best time to take it would be in the morning since fructose isn’t the best carb choice post-workout.[/quote]
how do you know the liver can only store 100 grams?
Eating fruit and honey is probably better to eat in the morning than in the evening. Some fruit and honey are cool, but large amounts of fructose is not a good idea. Your liver deals with it by turning it into fatty acids.
Also, fructose glycates proteins at a much higher rate than glucose. Excess glycation is very bad, infact I believe some doctors are using it as a marker of diabetes.
The only way the liver can be EMPTY in the morning, is if it was EMPTY at night before you went to sleep. At night your body is utilizing fatty acids for fuel and not glycogen.
[quote]elusive wrote:
The only way the liver can be EMPTY in the morning, is if it was EMPTY at night before you went to sleep. At night your body is utilizing fatty acids for fuel and not glycogen.[/quote]
So why exactly is it recommended to eat carbs in the morning?. I thought it was to replenish the liver.
Is honey a good choice of carbs for the morning?
[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
So why exactly is it recommended to eat carbs in the morning?. I thought it was to replenish the liver.[/quote]
Usually it’s because insulin sensitivity is greatest upon waking and PWO.
I eat carbs throughout the day, however – even right before bed.
I’d never rely on honey as a major carb source for my diet, just like I’d never rely on sucrose (table sugar).
100g seems kind of arbitrary.
[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
100g seems kind of arbitrary. [/quote]
It was just a starting line. not written in stone.
It’s probably a fairly reasonable value, not necessarily so much of what the liver can hold but typically does.
I don’t know of measurements of glycogen storage in the human – I’m not at all saying it hasn’t been done, just saying I don’t happen to know it – but doing a quick check on the known value of typical carbohydrate (almost all glycogen) content of beef liver, which is about 3.9 g per 100 g of raw liver weight, and a typical value for weight of the human liver being about 2 kg, that would work out to about 78 g if the human liver has as a typical value a glycogen content similar to that of cows. Obviously, the matchup may not be exact and probably is not, but at least gives a ballpark idea of what seems plausible.
Honey and fruits would be a great choice in the morning… Fruits and honey contain fructose, a sugar that is best metabolized in the liver in the morning due to lower than normal glycogen levels… the morning time is probably the only time you can get this effect unless you’re not eating throughout the day… so i would i keep fructose ingestion to a minimum unless its upon waking…i would also include a fast to moderately absorbed protein source.
[quote]Mr. Zero wrote:
Honey and fruits would be a great choice in the morning… Fruits and honey contain fructose, a sugar that is best metabolized in the liver in the morning due to lower than normal glycogen levels… the morning time is probably the only time you can get this effect unless you’re not eating throughout the day… so i would i keep fructose ingestion to a minimum unless its upon waking…i would also include a fast to moderately absorbed protein source.[/quote]
Yes, that’s what I was thinking.
[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
I know the liver can store up to 100g of glycogen. It is adviced to take in some carbs in the AM to fill up the liver e.t.c
Is the liver completely empty in the AM?[/quote]
No.
[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
Is eating honey and fruit in the AM the best way to fill the liver back with glycogen(since honey is made up of fructose and fruit has some in there as well.)?[/quote]
Any digestable carbohydrate source will do.
[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
I want to add honey into my diet and figured the best time to take it would be in the morning since fructose isn’t the best carb choice post-workout.[/quote]
Unless you are eating it by the tablespoonful like it’s going out of style, enjoy it whenever you like. This goes for all fruit - unless you are looking to cut down to 5% bodyfat, flooding your liver’s metabolic pathways with fructose from FRUIT shouldn’t be a concern. It would take a shitload (pardon the scientific jargon) of fruit to make this something worth worrying about.
Watch your HFCS, though (in large amounts - like sodas).
Besides, honey isn’t completely fructose anyhow. It’s a fairly diverse blend of sugars (mostly fructose and glucose).
It really comes down to your reason(s) for adding honey into your diet. As a sweetener, you shouldn’t need to worry about it unless you are ripping yourself up (as it is mostly fructose, you get a lot of bang for your buck compared to other natural sugars so you use less). If, however, you simply want to eat it straight from the jar with a spoon…you might want to pay a little more attention to the specifics.
Oh, and contrary to what some people here say, your body DOES utilize glycogen while you are sleeping (as it does when you are awake and fasting).
liver glycogen stores last about 14 hours depending on the person. In some individuals, it may last longer and other may not be quite that long.